


Scrying

by AgentStannerShipper



Series: tumblr ficlets [61]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Arthurian AU, F/F, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-23 01:03:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18539140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper
Summary: Merlin shows Olivia the futures.





	Scrying

**Author's Note:**

> Day eight was "potential."

“It’s like a scrying portal,” Merlin explained. Olivia leaned over the bowl with interest, staring at the swirling silver waters. Her mentor waved his hand over the basin and the swirling shifted direction, opening up in the centre until Olivia could see through the clear surface, which rippled and abruptly changed into a scene of a forest, not unlike the one beyond the tower window, with horses running through it. She could not yet make out the riders on their backs.

“Where are we looking at?” she asked.

“Where indeed?” Merlin dipped his finger into the water, and as he stirred it the image increased in size, moving closer to the horses and their riders.

This close, a pang went through Olivia’s heart, and she exclaimed, “It’s Lady Lancelot!” For it was; clad in leather rather than metal armour, her hair tied up but still waving behind her like a banner in the breeze, Roxanne steered her horse with precision and skill, twisting around to call something to the other rider.

“Aye,” Merlin agreed, and shifted the image to her companion.

Olivia’s breath caught. “But that…that’s me.” She was not wearing her usual robes, but was dressed not unlike Roxanne, in a tunic belted at the waist and with her hair tied up. “Does this scrying portal show the future?”

“Aye,” Merlin said. “But also, no. The waters go deeper still.” He withdrew his finger and waved over the basin again, and this time when the image changed, it was completely foreign. No sound came from it, but the street it revealed could be nothing but noise, filled with metal monsters that rushed to and fro, lined with dwellings unlike any Olivia had ever seen.

“What is this place?”

“I know not,” Merlin admitted. “It is the future. A future. The scrying portal sees them all, every possibility, every potential. Never the path, only the outcome.”

Olivia stared at the waters, transfixed. From one of the dwellings, a woman in strange garb was exiting, pulling her companion by the hand. As Merlin pressed in again, Olivia’s eyes widened. “But how…?”

“The soul is a curious thing,” Merlin murmured. When Olivia chanced a look at him, he too was fixated on the image, at the tiny, odd version of himself and his partner, the venerable Galahad, bidding goodbye to the doubles of Olivia and Roxanne. “I can see no other explanation.” He looked to her, and there was something behind his eyes, old beyond measure. “I have studied the scrying portal for many years, Olivia. Even I have not yet unlocked all it’s mysteries. But it seems to me, that no matter where I look within it, no matter what future I see, I see myself. I see my love. And I see my daughter.”

Olivia’s heart swelled. Though she was not Merlin’s by birth, but a babe abandoned in the forest that he had taken it upon himself to raise, she thought of him often as her father as well as her mentor, and nothing pleased her more than to hear the word daughter from his own lips.

“The only conclusion I can reach,” Merlin continued, “is that our souls will continue on, in some form or another. And perhaps, because of that, we will always be drawn together.”

Olivia looked at the basin again. In it, Roxanne was still clutching onto her arm, laughing in delight. Her heart twisted. “Do you see Lady Lancelot often?”

Merlin’s expression softened. “I do. What I do not see is her by your side now.”

With a sigh, Olivia turned away from the basin, and in her periphery, she saw its glow fade as Merlin returned it to ordinary waters. “It matters not. Lady Lancelot is a knight.”

“As is Galahad,” Merlin said gently. “But he and I have been lovers for longer than you have been alive.”

“It’s different.”

“How?”

“Galahad eschews the highborn. He cares not for them. Lady Lancelot is-“

“Roxanne cares less for her position than you might imagine,” Merlin said. He circled around in front of her. “I hear she has become quite fast friends with Galahad’s squire. Eggsy is hardly what you’d call highborn. Interacting with him would only damage her position, and yet she treats him as close friend and confidant.” When Olivia refused to look at him, her took her hands gingerly. “Olivia. There is no shame in loving her. People like us so rarely have an opportunity to love. It is worth seizing on when you find it.”

“She doesn’t even know my name.”

“Then it’s high time that changed, wouldn’t you say?”

Olivia gripped her father’s hands and glanced back over her shoulder at the scrying portal with its still waters. Her heart thundered so loudly that for a moment she wondered if her fear had summoned a storm. “And you really see us together?”

“Not always,” Merlin cautioned. “And I cannot predict the future that will occur. But to not try would be foolish.”

And years later, chasing her beloved through the forest on horseback, the wind whipping in her ears and carrying her darling’s laughing calls back to her, Olivia would have to agree.


End file.
